More and More Aware

    Sorry about the long hiatus, life has been moving at a very quick pace and I couldn't seem to settle down to write.  I have 8 draft posts that just wouldn't come together because I was too busy thinking about other things.  Had a lot of those things resolve last night and I'm ba-ack.  Can't tell you how nice it is to be in my right mind. So, on to business, boy do I have a strange yoga thought for you today.

The Thinker

     This Saturday my younger son and I were out on college visits.  The University of Louisville held an open house called Accolade and we would visit Bellarmine later in the day.  Our thoughts were, "We should go. It is the right thing to do. (sigh)"  We got up early, early, early Saturday morning and made our way southwest.  From the tentative schedule, it looked like a day full of lectures (heavy sigh). Well, it was full of lectures, but it was so worth it!
     I can hear you thinking, where is the yoga in this? In an alignment based yoga class like mine, the teacher is always saying things like, "what change does this make in your body?" and "Notice the flow of energy in your body."  I have found that after 8 years of teaching and many more of practice, I notice things all the time  (in fact, when I go to the doctors, they all say I'm difficult to work with because I notice so much.)

with halo

    Back to noticing, when we drove on the U of L campus, we both got a good feeling, but did not mention it (it seemed like a fluke and I really did not want to influence Daniel's college decision).  As the day progressed, there were many things to love; from the down to earth speakers to the size of the campus to the art museum I have enjoyed for years.  The picture at right is a copy of Rodin's The Thinker.  I'm not sure if I like the version with the sun peaking through or when I gave the thinker a halo (the picture on the left).
     It was that kind of day.  Everything went well.  Like finding the correct light when we happened to be by the statue.  We also saw one of the albino squirrels.  We had not even heard of them before, but after we got home friends told us that some years they give away t-shirts to anyone who gets a picture.  I'm guessing that was too unpredictable, because this year you got a prize if you found one of the (not too) hidden Cardinals.

the albino squirrel

     With all of these charming things happening, it seemed like the energy was just right.  We were in all the right places at the right times.  One of the things that impressed us the most was the philosophy at the Speed School of Engineering at U of L.  At my elder son's UK orientation, we were told that "most students need 5 years to complete the program."  At the Speed School, all students co-op, there is a class that teaches them how to interview.  Students are expected to finish in 4 years and, if they choose, the 5th year is for your masters.  It is the only school in the country with this accredited program.  This attitude is such a good fit for my younger son.
     Who would have thought how clearly our inner awareness would be reflected in our experience? We got the feeling while driving into a parking garage.Who knew?

the happy guy with "hidden" cardinal

Rest in Safety

   The longer I live as a Christian, the more convinced that I am that Jesus came to show us how to live.  Strong statement for 1 in the morning, I know, but I couldn't sleep until I wrote this.
    As a young woman, I was convinced that the fruit of our life was how we coped with the suffering that life produced.  So, of course, I welcomed suffering and shortfalls into my life.  I only had clothing in my closet that others had given me.  Wasn't this the poverty that the books talked about?  Well, not really.  As I grew and learned, I found that life is about confronting gracefully and actively what was presented.
    In the past few months I have had many opportunities to practice grace and ease (and sometimes I even took advantage of them).  It has been like God (or the universe or whatever you would like to term the Higher Power) has been lobbing softball after softball at me to see how I would stand up to constant, but light, pressure.  Of course, there has been mixed results.
     Today I was thrown a hardball.  I have spent most of my life working on my body and mind.  Exercising, meditating, praying and reading book after book.  One would think that I was the picture of health, inside and out.  Not so much.  I have been visiting a new chiropractor, who really believes in holistic care, body, mind and soul.  When we looked at my latest x-rays, they revealed more imbalance and bits of degeneration that were new additions.  Aak!  I have been under chiropractic care for at leas 14 years and have practiced yoga for 11 (one class that I teach has run for almost 9 years).  How could this be?
     As we talked it over, of course she told me the things I knew: your body is the culmination of all that you have eaten, drunk, breathed and felt  for the whole time you have been alive; just think what it would be like if you did not do all those things; there is a possibility for some improvement.  But, the bottom line was, my neck will never match the ideal blueprint I have learned about in so many ways.  It is time to let that dream go.  Bummer.
      My eye doctor said the same thing earlier this year.  I have worn glasses since I was two years old, done eye training of many different kinds, etc etc etc.  When I asked if my eyes would ever improve, he said "that is a mountain too high."  Broke my heart.
      With all this background, where does Jesus come in?  As I was praying before bed, the only thing that came to mind was Matthew 26:39:  Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."  Each time I am faced with some "infirmity," it turns into the blessing of a class or something I can use for my clients.  It is not that God wills me to have these problems, but how can I turn the problems into gifts.  What a great gift I have been given.  Now it is time to rest in the safety of the Lord.

Turn The Other Cheek

    So often we think of turning the other cheek as being a doormat for Jesus.  Isn't that  what He said?  Well, last Friday I was given a completely different perspective.  Rather than being submissive, turning the other cheek is standing your ground and by your refusal to retreat, mirroring your attacker's actions to them.  Now that sentence doesn't make sense to me (and I wrote it) but I have some great examples, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa.  Talk about two strong, non-violent people who changed the world!

   One day, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was walking on a raised walkway beside a muddy street. Approaching from the opposite direction came a white man.  The white man told him "I don't make way for gorillas."  The archbishop stepped aside, into the mud, made a deep sweeping gesture, and said, "Ah, yes, but I do."  What a great way to clarify the situation.

    The next story is from the life of Mother Teresa.  I had the privilege to work with the Missionaries of Charity (the order she founded) while stationed in the Philippines.  I have seen first hand the power of her convictions.  If I had to chose one word to describe their common life other than service, it would be pereseverance.  This fits in well with being struck on one cheek and offering the other.  The story that I was told is that one day Mother Teresa was begging for food for a young child.  They had gone to the baker.  He flatly refused and even spit on her.  Mother Teresa said, "Thank you for the gift for me, now could you please give this child some bread."
     I hope this gives you a bit of food for thought, now how to put it into practice....

Who Am I Now?

    So often we look at a challenge and say, "I can't (or won't) do that!"  Insert whatever you would like for "that."   Unfortunately I say this all the time in the back of my head.  The front, active part of my mind embraces challenges, signs up for new classes, tries the new things.  The back of my mind digs its heels in.  I found the perfect image on Flickr from Velo abzug.

   This little guy's face describes how I feel sometimes.  I want to hike instead of run.  I want to let go of my childhood books.  I want to learn how to really use my voice.  The list is endless, but interesting.  What I love about energy healing is that I learn to use different techniques to overcome my inner square wheel.

     Recently (okay, yesterday), I went through most of the books in our house to find a large group to get rid of.  The recent influx of furniture has moved a large bookshelf into my son's room and made a need in the basement to store some family heirlooms.  The books had to go.  In my searches, I found one of my favorite  childhood books. Crispan Magicker by Mark M Lowenthal, published in 1979.

    Of course, I reread the book and looked the author up on Wikipedia.  This was the author's only fantasy novel.  His other works were about U.S. Intelligence and, of all things, the t.v. show Jeopardy.   Talk about change and finding a new path.  What if our reluctance to find a new path leaves us stuck in fantasy land?

   Today's yoga class was challenging.  I asked students to look at the world in a new way.  We did a variety of twists and hip openers that were not easy.  I hate to admit the number of times where I said "Do this, I'll watch."  Let's just say that I love to keep all my problems in my hips and I love to have students who can do the things I describe!  In my home practice (and in my home life), I use techniques like relaxation and Jin Shin Jyutsu to help me change.  Here's a link to the two techniques.  Nothing is complete alone, we all need help.  Let me know if these work for you.

I Am Willing to Change! Part Two

  (So yesterday I left you hanging, I was having a bit of a time getting the photos off my phone.  Fortunately, the photos are beginning to trickle in.)
     The longer I practice reiki and other forms of healing, the more I have realized that the body resembles the earth.  In the mid 1800's as Pasteur developed his germ centered disease theory, Prof Louis-Claude Vincent took very similar data and came to slightly different conclusions.  Yes, streptococcus bacteria causes strep throat, but Vincent says if the body is out of balance, it creates a home to nurture disease.  The longer I work with healing, the more I agree with Vincent.  As a college student, any time I was tested, I had a positive strep test without ever getting the symptoms like my friends.
     In creating our new "park" in the back yard, we followed the same steps that I recommend to clients who have long term health issues.  Begin by identifying what you would like to change.  In my yard, it was a work intensive garden that had no comfortable place to sit and enjoy.  In my life it is a laundry list of little symptoms that add up to hormonal imbalance (yes, I know, shocking for a 45 year old....).

    In yesterday's work, I showed pictures of the ground work being laid, but couldn't show you what we decided to save.  Here you see two of the three trees that we saved while putting in the patio.  It is like looking at my own body.  There is a lot of living in this body to create the hormonal imbalance that I am experiencing.  Do I want to give up my past and become a high school student again? Absolutely not. I keep my past, put it in perspective, then create something wonderful out of it.

       Notice how carefully the ground is being prepared.  The forms have loads of reinforcement and gravel is only in the low spots (on the right of the picture).  This is like the preparation work we do in healing.  Keep a temperature log (to see if your body runs cold), check your pH first thing in the morning (to see if your body is acidic).  Take Chem X or Metal X to get rid of the metals and chemicals that prevent healing.  Then it is time to create the life you want.

  Start with the remedies you need (for our garden it was a lot of concrete).  Remember your long term goal, because the remedy may cause a bit of havoc.  This truck broke off many limbs of by fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus), but look at what started to grow....

         Another part of the healing process is detox.  The body gets rid of things that no longer serve.  This can be through excretory processes or through emotional release.  Though I have done this many times with my body, I was absolutely horrified when the concrete truck cleaned it's chute into my back yard.

     I went into my house so that I didn't have to watch.  It was all cleaned up by my excellent contractors, but the process was awful.  It was like watching pus being drawn out of an infected wound, necessary in the long run, but difficult in the present.
    Of course, the patio is still in process.  The concrete has set enough to walk on, but there is still clean up and beautification to do.  For our park we need benches and flower pots and a fire pit (and anything else I can dream up).  Again, just like healing.  I've finished the first round of remedies to remove some underlying causes, now it is time for the next.  I leave you with a picture of the brand new patio with a 20 year old bench.... It's not beautiful, but it is great to sit on in the morning and drink hot lemon water.

I Am Willing To Change!

     Everyone got it right!  2012 is a year of Great Transformation. This is the time to use my favorite Louise Hay affirmation, "I am willing to change." Now, I'm not a believer in the end of the world, but I know that my world is changing remarkably (with one child in college, the other going next year and lots of other changes, one could say it is the end of my world as I knew it). Think R.E.M.

    Our entire house and property is in a state of upheaval.  We brought home furniture from our trip to New Jersey.  It is all lovely and fits into the house much better than I expected.  However, it has necessitated rearranging almost every room in the house.  Two rooms are completely finished.  I love them.  Those others, not so much.  They will be great soon (or as soon as I get to work).  The funny thing about this change is it is just work, not upsetting, just irritating in the fact that the living room is full of books and the parlor with pictures and our bedroom with.... (you get the picture).
   To add the cherry atop the sundae of change, we have been trying to find a contractor to put in a back patio for us the whole spring and summer and Friday it finally happened. On Friday morning our back corner looked like this...

  It began life about fifteen years ago as a beautiful English style garden, complete with vegetable patch.  When the kids were small we would spend hours in the back yard playing and gardening.  As they grew and life happened things have changed.  Since I knew we would dig the whole thing up, this year I didn't pull a single weed and boy does it show.  The only things we wanted to keep were the three redbud trees I had planted to honor my dad.  He died in springtime just as the redbuds peaked.  The last week he was alive I put over 700 miles on my car just driving to and from the hospital and dropping the kids off with friends.  That week I spent a lot of time admiring the redbuds along the 275 loop around Cincinnati.
      So, we were changing, getting rid of things that no longer served us (the garden) while keeping the things we loved (the trees).  Sound a bit like energy healing and growing up?  When we set off to make a change for the better, the first thing we need is the proper tools.  If you've ever had a session with me, you know I use my Nu|vision computer system, Biogenesis tools and healing crystals.  To fix this backyard, we needed 6 men and a Bobcat.

   In under an hour, my once beautiful, now weedy English garden was a pile of refuse. Though I kept portions of all the plants, it was hard to see the remainder discarded.  It is like when a child goes to college.  It is good for both you and your child.  Usually there have been years of straining the bonds of civility.  It doesn't make driving away with the adult child in your rearview mirror any easier.  Fortunately we have pictures from all the Easter egg hunts and good times that were had in the garden (when it was a child as well).

   Acknowledging that is time for a change can be challenging, but this spring we decided what we were looking for was more of a park than a garden.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a place that was restful and beautiful, a place where we could entertain and enjoy? Absolutely.  The tear down is the first step.  Friday we ripped off the band-aid.

The Job of a Teacher

  So often when we search for a teacher as an adult, it is so difficult.  We have these small windows of availability (I am only free on Tuesday and Thursday evenings...).  We want someone who will challenge us, but not too much.  I see it like searching for a spouse as an older adult.  As a teen and young adult, our list of "must haves" is fairly short.  At 45, my list is considerably longer.
    I just found the perfect representation of my ideal teacher.  This past Sunday I went to a great art auction and fundraiser at Bolero's Dance Club.  All of the proceeds benefited the Brighton Recovery Center for Women.  There were graffiti artists, break dancers, and many demonstrations.  I just fell in love with watching the artists.  I've only held spray paint to paint my tools orange so I wouldn't lose them at job sites.  Here they were creating art!  A series of pictures I took of one of the artists, Max Unterhaslberger, clarified my thoughts about teachers.

    In this picture you can see the beautiful orange, red and tan under painting.  It is like the student who first walks into a yoga class.  The student is already beautiful.  It is the teachers job to highlight and define the beauty that is already there.

     In walking into each class the teacher has some idea of the class to be taught, but the specifics are dictated by the students who attend. Each class is an opportunity to reveal the beauty within the student.   When you find the teacher who can do this for you, that is the teacher to keep!

    It is worth moving heaven and earth to attend the class once you find the right teacher.  My reiki master lives in Louisville, an hour and a half drive from my house.  For a two day class, I'll drive more than six hours and count the time well spent.  Each Friday my mom and I attend yoga class at Shine Yoga Center.  The class is an hour and half and so is the drive.  So worth it!  I hope you find your teacher as well.